Re-Creating the World

As we wait at the threshold of 2022, many of us may be wondering how the new year will treat us and our loved ones. Will it be a gentler, kinder year than 2021 or will it inflict new suffering, setbacks and limitations? Will we see an end to COVID-19 or will the new avian flu that is decimating poultry and migratory crane populations in Israel begin infecting humans, spawning another pandemic? What will happen to the stock market and the economy? Will businesses rally or will 2022 see the closing of more well-known chains and franchises?

As we sing Auld Lang Syne, no doubt we will experience a mixture of nostalgia, hope and dread — but despite fireworks and pot banging, hearty singing and unrestrained drinking, we will be missing the spiritual significance of New Year altogether!

Millennia ago, the Ancient Ones regarded the coming of the New Year as a cosmic event. According to such scholars as Mircea Eliade and Sir James Frazer, archaic peoples understood that the ending of one year and the beginning of the next was not merely the opportunity for a new personal beginning but a time for the whole cosmos to be renewed. The old world had to die so that a new creation could come into being and it was through certain rituals and festivals that this could be accomplished.

In The Myth of the Eternal Return, Eliade writes: "Almost everywhere the expulsion of demons, diseases and sins coincides — or at one period coincided — with the festival of the New Year" (54). He then explains that in some societies there were ceremonies of extinguishing and rekindling fires; in others, noise and violent gestures banished the presence of evil afflictions; in still others, there was the expulsion of the scapegoat — either human or animal — bearing the sins of the people. Apparently this was no mere "purification" but an annihilation of individual and communal sin, a mortal combat between chaos and creation.

The stakes, then, couldn't have been higher. The very survival of humanity depended upon those ancient rituals. Religious observance allowed the community to reenact the creation of the world and to ensure a year of stability, fertility and peace. In those times, everything depended upon everyone — and so it is with us! If we are to re-create the world, we must commit to more than a "new beginning" but must actively work towards establishing a new creation: the old world is passing away; all creation is "groaning in labor pains" (Rom 8:22) — what can we do to birth a new world order of justice, mercy and prosperity for all sentient beings?